Mount Vernon Small Business Spotlight: We Read Together

Every local business has a story worth sharing with the community. And that’s the belief behind this ongoing series at Patch — to shine the spotlight on all our favorite local businesses, and to learn a little about the ones we may not know that well.

Business: We Read Together
Owners: As a non-profit, we have no owners. Benjamin Lambright (Founder, Executive Director)
Website: www.wereadtogether.org
Address: 300 Hayward Avenue, Apartment 1V, Mount Vernon, NY 10552

1. How did you come up with the name? I played around with a few variants but We Read Together came to me very early in the process and more or less stuck.
2. Why start a business in this town? Lots of reasons. There is a clear need here to support the existing education system. I have great access to local colleges (Especially Sarah Lawrence) to recruit excellent, passionate, and well educated tutors and teachers. More than anything else, it's the people of Mount Vernon that make me want to work here. I've moved more than 20 times and this is easily the most friendly and welcoming area I've ever lived in.
3. What business are you in? We Read Together is a non-profit dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children everywhere. We offer free reading classes, free reading resources, and low cost tutoring.
4. What’s the most difficult challenge you’ve faced as a business owner? It's a toss up between the stress of having people depend on you for such a vital service and making sure we stay in the black.
5. What’s been your proudest achievement since opening? The day we hired our first employees. I remember sitting across the table from them and realizing that it wasn't just me any more, that I was helping people eat and pay rent and that those people were going out in the world and helping kids love to read and succeed in school. It was very powerful. I was in tears.
6. How does your business give back to the community? Giving back to the community is our business. If it doesn't help the community. We don't do it.

PHOTO: (Left to Right) Managing Director Victoria Lepore, Executive Director Benjamin Lambright, Amelia Egland, Director of Tutoring Mary Bheem, and Jeremiah Driver/contributed